In-Class Work 3 (ICW3)

The goal of this exercise is to gain experience reading and discussing a couple of basic chart types. We'll look at a line chart, bar chart, and a scatterplot.

Instructions

Gather into groups of 2-3 students

Discuss each chart (described and shown below)

list the marks/channels and data/attributes (and data type of the attributes) they map to

list 2-3 observations or insights that you can make from the chart

in particular, notice what you looked at on the chart to make your observations and discuss how the particular chart helped you make the observations

is this chart type well suited for this data? why or why not?

does this chart raise questions for you? is there other data that you'd like to see?

Choose a group representative who will present your findings to the class when we gather back together.

Line Chart

Les Miles was the coach of the LSU Tigers, my favorite college football team, from 2005-2015. Before that (2001-2004), he was coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Let's look at his success in terms of winning percentage per year. Winning percentage is calculated as games won in a season divided by total games. This line chart shows Les Miles' winning percentage per year.

Bar Chart

Each offensive play in football is either a run, pass, or kick. Here we'll look at rushing (run) statistics for the 20 teams with the highest rushing average per game. This bar chart shows the average yards gained by rushing per game for the top 20 teams.

Scatterplot

In the previous graph, we looked at average rushing yards per game. Here we'll compare that to the team's winning percentage for the 2016 season. This scatterplot shows each team's winning percentage and that team's average rushing yards per game. This chart is showing data for all 128 NCAA FBS teams. (Note that I had to combine data from 2 different tables to generate this chart.)